In an unusual meeting of Internet adversaries, the DMA announced yesterday that it met with anti-spam (bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail) advocates in Washington last week and came to a consensus on various ways to reduce the abuse of the Internet by spammers.
“This meeting could not have taken place two years ago,” said Ray Everett-Church, a lobbyist for the Washington, DC-based anti-spam group, the Coalition Against Unsolicited E-Mail.
According to the DMA, in a five-hour meeting the marketers and anti-spam advocates agreed to:
*Support legislation that, at a minimum, prohibits false identification in commercial e-mail;
*Acknowledge ‘opt-in’ as the most successful targeting method for online marketers. By ‘opt-in’ the group agreed on the definition “the recipient has stated and not rescinded his or her desire to receive the type of mail which you are sending.”
*Work to create a non-profit global opt-out list, supported by marketers and free to consumers, which allows businesses and individuals to perform a one-time global opt-out from unsolicited commercial e-mail.
